1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to trays for food. More particularly, the invention relates to a pegboard tray for retaining food items during transportation.
2. Related Art
Food trays are commonly used at social functions where food is served, such as parties and receptions. At gatherings where family and friends are asked to bring a dish of food, these dishes vary in content of solids and liquids. In either case, the transportation of such foods in a vehicle to and from the gathering can be difficult. Dishes are commonly placed in the floor board of the vehicle and have a tendency to slide around during transport resulting many times in spilling of the contents into the vehicle. Attempts to prevent this from occurring include surrounding the food container with towels or other items to prevent the food container from sliding around on the floor board. This has not proven to be an acceptable solution. Still, others have created cargo retainers in the rear of vehicles, such as the trunk, which retain cargo within a predefined space within the retainer. Likewise, this has not proven to be an acceptable solution as the food container size varies in configuration which in many instances is not suitably fixed against movement within the cargo retainer's predefined retainer space. Moreover, many of the food items/containers are hot. Consequently, transporting these to and from the automobile requires handling with hot pads and/or mittens.
Some food trays of the prior art incorporate a flat surface portion and a cup-like portion formed in the upper surface of the plate for supporting both food and a drink container. Although the plates of this type are capable of supporting a drink container and some type of food container, they are not designed for transportation of various configured containers in a suitable manner to prevent spillage from occurring as a result of lateral G-forces acting on the transported food container.
There remains a need to aid one in transporting food items within a container from one's kitchen to a vehicle. Further, there is a need for a suitable transportation device for food containers which can be readily inserted and removed from one's vehicle. There is a further need that such a device be aesthetically pleasing. The present invention aims to solve these needs.